St John WA volunteers win prestigious awards

St John WA volunteers, Brian Gallop and Bree Del Borrello, have won 2025 WA Volunteer of the Year awards.  

Brian Gallop is the winner of the prestigious ‘Volunteer of the Year’ category while Bree Del Borrello has been crowned ‘Young Volunteer of the Year’. 

Run by Volunteering WA, the awards are an annual celebration of Western Australia’s dedicated community of volunteers.  

Brian has been volunteering with St John WA across the Goldfields since 1998 and describes his work as an “absolute privilege”. 

A highly experienced Volunteer Development Officer and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), Brian has committed almost 30 years of service to emergency response, volunteer training and community outreach all over Western Australia. 

He is a fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) worker who spends his down time lending his endless skills, experience and enthusiasm to St John sub centres across WA.  

In 2024, Brian provided critical pre-hospital care in remote regions, travelling over 1,000 km during work breaks to assist isolated communities.

A Lancelin local and enrolled nurse, Bree, 25, volunteers as an Emergency Medical Technician at the St John WA Lancelin Sub Centre alongside her partner, Tyler, and mother-in-law, Tonya.   

Bree has completed more than 1000 hours since she joined the team three years ago and hundreds more spent mentoring and training new volunteers.

Tom Price volunteer and local deputy principal, Nicole Kelly, was also a finalist in the Lifetime Contribution to Volunteering category. 

Craig Spencer, Head of Volunteer Engagement at St John WA, said: “Our volunteers often say they don’t volunteer for recognition and both of these amazing humans, Brian and Bree, were very humble in their acceptance.  

“These annual awards provide an opportunity to celebrate all of our incredible volunteers in Ambulance, Event Health Services, Community Transport, First Aid, Community, Youth and Heritage.  

“They also provide us a moment in time each year to celebrate volunteering – in which St John WA strives to be a leader.”  

St John WA’s Country Ambulance has more than 4000 volunteers supporting the service, which covers the biggest footprint of any single ambulance service in the world — 2.5 million square kilometres or 33 per cent of the Australian landmass. 

Learn more about volunteering with St John WA.